Builders: Ailsa Shipping Co Ltd Troon 1924
Propulsion type: Paddle compound diagonal
Owner: New Medway Steam Packet Co
Service dates: 1924 - 1963 (and perhaps more to come?)
Tonnage: Net 134 Gross 316
Comments:
This picture is from a slide taken by Cyril Perrier, with whose permission it is reproduced here. It shows Medway Queen leaving Southend Pier on 27 August 1962, near the end of her operational career. This picture is previously unpublished and I am grateful to Mr Perrier for lending it to me.
Medway Queen is my favourite of all paddle steamers, probably because I remember travelling on her from Southend to Herne Bay as a child. She operated principally from Chatham to Southend, Clacton and Felixstowe. Heavily involved in the Dunkirk evacuation, she was officially reported as lost but returned after a record seven trips from the beaches, saving 7000 soldiers. My own father in law, who was with the British Expeditionary Force was rescued from the Dunkirk beaches by a paddle steamer, although, somewhat understandably, he did not take an interest in the steamer's name as he had spent many hours and hours in the water waiting in line to be rescued from the German attack. I like to think it may have been Medway Queen who rescued him and without whom my wife would not have been born.
Medway Queen is now the subject of a thriving preservation society and is being restored at Damhead Creek in the River Medway. On my 38th birthday on 26 June 1993, I visited her with my father, mother and my son, Michael. We have a three generation photograph of us all on the bridge.
I have recently been given, by Mr Brian Fisher, two handbills from Medway Queen's 1959 season. For pictures of the steamer's handbills please click here.
Whether she will sail again is debatable but you can visit the Medway Queen Preservation Society's web site for more information.